


The Road To Ruin

by Separatist_Apologist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Cursed Vaults (Hogwarts Mystery), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, I'm growing as a person, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant, look no politics this time, past to present jumping, some violence, soul mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 09:46:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30019875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Separatist_Apologist/pseuds/Separatist_Apologist
Summary: ...and we're starting at the endHelga Hufflepuff knows death is coming for her just as sure as the sun will set. Aware she's running out of time, she asks Godric Gryffindor to hide a child for her, making him swear he will protect her life above his own and never reveal her location, no matter the circumstances. Godric agrees, setting into motion a chain of events that lead straight to Stella Murphy, a Hufflepuff going into her seventh year at Hogwarts. Everything about her life seems to be a mystery- from her birth and the mother she's never met to the strange nightmares that plague her dreams that seem linked to a cursed vault she can't seem to open.Stella will have to untangle the events of the people who came before her nearly a thousand years earlier if she wants to find answers, both about herself and the mysterious cursed vault.
Relationships: Barnaby Lee & Rowan Khanna, Bill Weasley/Original Female Character(s), Godric Gryffindor/Helga Hufflepuff, Helga Hufflepuff/Salazar Slytherin, Penny Haywood/Tulip Karasu
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Starting at the End

**Author's Note:**

> This account is morphing into a Domnhall Gleeson appreciation account. I'm not sorry. A few notes:
> 
> Chapters jump back and forth in time. You'll know where you are in time obviously by characters but also the past is italicized. 
> 
> There will be a depiction of domestic violence in a later chapter. I will add a trigger warning before it so anyone who wants to skip it and jump to the end for a synopsis can, but if you don't like reading it AT ALL, this is your upfront warning so you can bail now.

_Salazar could sense Godric’s presence before any of the servants announced his arrival. It was the unspoken bond they shared, even after decades apart, unwavering despite their different paths. In that moment, lying in his bed so close to death, it almost felt comforting to know that this one small thing from his past remained unchanged. So little else did._

_Salazar had written to Godric months before, almost to the minute when he realized death was coming for him just as surely as it had come for the others. He needed answers, though he was too proud to beg for them. He needed Godric to answer the last lingering mystery that still haunted him, that kept him chained to Hogwarts. Kept him chained to her._

_The sound of heavy boots on stone floors, followed by a heavy, oak door creaking open betrayed Godric. Salazar almost laughed when he saw the lion of a man, standing tall as he always had, his red hair streaked with gray. His beard had nearly overtaken his face though those twinkling, blue eyes remained. They were cold as they gazed upon Salazar’s frail, failing body._

_“You haven’t changed at all,” Salazar told Godric, cutting through some of the tension in the room. He suspected Godric might forgive him all his sins, if Salazar felt inclined to ask for it. If he felt sorry for any of the things he’d done._

_“You have become old, my friend,” Godric replied in his deep rumble. Salazar wheezed out a soft laugh._

_“I’m dying, as we all will, eventually.”_

_The hardness returned to Godric’s posture. Rowena was gone, along with baby Helena, taken by disease and rotting love, respectively. Helga, too, gone, the first of them to depart from the mortal plane, a tragedy that still sloshed putridly around in Salazar’s chest._

_“If you’ve come, I trust that means you have decided to put an old man out of his misery?” Salazar continued; too hopeful he could die with no lingering regrets._

_“I came to tell you goodbye,” Godric replied with measure. “And to see if you would tell me what happened to Helga.”_

_“Perhaps an exchange of information?” Salazar quired, the calculated words causing Godric’s features to screw up in anger._

_“You first.”  
“Helga is dead,” Salazar told him, the words dry in his mouth._

_Godric sighed impatiently. “I guessed as much. What did you do to her? Where is her body?”_

_Salazar would die before he ever gave Godric Helga’s body. It was a secret between him and her, one he intended to take to his grave._

_“It was an accident,” Salazar told Godric, his body filling with shame as it so often did when he remembered their last, violent moments together. “I was so furious I…I lost myself.”_

_“How often you lose yourself, at the expense of those you claim to love,” Godric replied, his words condemnation. There would be no forgiveness today, not from Gryffindor._

_“I loved her,” Salazar insisted with all the passion left in his body. “More than—”_

_“The wife and children you have now?” Godric pressed, a reminder of Salazar’s feeble attempt to start over, to pretend he’d never felt the warmth of true love only to lose it. Salazar bristled._

_“More than you,” Salazar finished, well aware that Godric had always carried a torch for her, so much so that he had never married, never tried to move on. Had he spent these decades trying to unearth the location of her body? Did he think it would give him peace? Salazar would not allow it. He’d won her and he would keep her, even now when there was no longer a choice to be made between the two men. He possessed her in life, and he would in death as well._

_“I suspect you never loved her, certainly not the way she loved you. I know you did not deserve her, and I am comforted knowing that she awaits you in the afterlife to enact the retribution denied to her in life.”_

_Salazar could not deny this was also his fear. Sometimes he thought he saw her, standing in the distance, her usual warm, brown eyes filled with nothing but ice. Perhaps it did not matter, so long as they were together._

_“I pity you,” Godric continued, turning his back. “Even now, you steal so much. I wish you nothing but agony, like you have brought to so many. To me.”_

_He turned his back to leave but Salazar called after him. “Where is the child, Godric! Where have you hidden the boy?”_

_Godric paused, turning again to look upon Salazar, every inch of the massive man before him radiating with fury. Hanging on the hip of his crimson tunic, the sword Salazar had so often watched him use to cut down foes. Salazar would have welcomed such an end._

_“She never wished for you to know and I will honor that request,” Godric told him, his words thunder upon Salazars chest._

_“The child belongs to me!” Salazar insisted. “He should be raised here, among family—!”_

_“Her family is dead! She has nothing and I will die a thousand deaths before I allow you to corrupt her, pollute her, as you have done to so many others! You killed her mother! You will stay away from the girl.”_

_A girl. He’d always assumed a boy, as all his children with his current wife were, and the first child he’d had with Helga had also been a boy, before his premature death._

_A girl. He imagined Helga’s blonde hair, curling in soft ringlets framed around the rounded, chubby face of a toddling child. Brown eyes with a wide smile. For one moment he allowed himself to imagine what it might have been like to raise such a tiny thing with Helga._

_It made his chest ache to consider, though by now she would be an adult, a witch in her own right…a witch who, even if Godric had sent to be educated somewhere else, would have children of her own, who would also have children, on and on until one of them ended up at Hogwarts._

_“You can’t hide her forever,” Salazar told Godric, a heavy laugh filling his chest. “Hogwarts will call to her. She is doomed to walk those halls just as we all were. I may be gone by the time she arrives, but she will still come to me. It is her curse.”_

_Godric took one last look at the laughing Salazar, his hatred melting into pity again. “We shall see.”_

_As Godric left, the hazy vision of Helga appeared just outside the doorframe, watching him with those unforgiving eyes._

_“We shall see,” he said again, this time to her. She stayed, just long enough to see him take one last breath._

_In that last moment, he swore he heard her whisper back, “We shall see, Salazar…” The words filled him with dread, in those last seconds, and then he knew no more._


	2. Invite Me In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not Hogwarts Mystery compliant AT ALL. I'm borrowing some of the characters and the general vaults but that's it. Probably should have mentioned that at the start

_“Must there be four?” Salazar asked Godric as they trampled through the Welsch countryside toward a hidden cottage of a friend of Godric’s. “Is not Rowena enough?”_

_“Rowena is a wonderful addition but you must trust me when I assure you Helga is very much needed.”_

_“What could be so special about her?” Salazar grumbled, anxious to get back to the construction of the castle and more importantly, his plans for students once they arrived. In truth, he would have preferred if had been just him and Godric, though Salazar had to admit introducing Godric to Rowena had been a good idea. Perhaps Godric felt he was not contributing enough? What else did they need? Bravery, cunning, wit…it seemed enough. There was nothing else he could think a future student of their school should possess in order to earn admission._

_“Ah, there it is,” Godric breathed, waving his wand gently against the placid, bright spring day. The air shimmered, revealing a small cottage set up against the cliffside, hidden from the muggles. The muggles were on a warpath it seemed, determined to stamp them out. They needed places to hide, where they could congregate and learn to fight back. Too many of them were barely literate in English, let alone Latin. How could a witch or wizard defend themselves if they couldn’t learn the spells that would allow them to do so?_

_The stepped over the imaginary boundary, drawing the witch Godric had called Helga from the cottage, a frown set against a soft, round face. Salazar froze in place though Godric continued walking. Framed against sunlight, Salazar did not think he had ever seen anything quite as lovely as Helga, in a simple yellow dress, laced up at the boddice with black string. Long, blonde hair fell around her shoulders in soft curls though she had it braided at the sides as was common among the Norse. When she realized it was Godric approaching her frown dissipated into a smile that reached her wide, warm brown eyes. Salazar’s brain caught up with his feet and he started jogging toward the two, feeling foolish that he’d been so easily overwhelmed by her beauty._

_“When I said you could call anytime, I did not expect so soon,” she chided, though she allowed Godric to pull her into a strong hug. She was small in comparison to the looming presence that was tall, broad Gryffindor. “Who are we slaying today?”_

_“No slaying my fierce Viking,” he said with a laugh, confirming what Salazar suspected. “I have come with a proposition.”_

_Her eyes moved from Gryffindor’s face to Salazar, who was aware he was hovering, an outsider. Godric seemed to realize Salazar was there._

_“Ah, of course. This is Salazar Slytherin, my best and oldest friend in the world. I would trust him with my life. Salazar, this is Helga, a friend I made in a particularly difficult battle with some muggle raiders. I had lost my wand—”_

_“Again?” Salazar interrupted, earning a conspiratorial smile from Helga. His chest filled with warmth at the gesture._

_“And Helga was raised both Welsh and Norse.”_

_“My father came from further north as a pillager and was so overcome by my mother he decided to stay and court her,” Helga explained. “He is a muggle.”_

_Salazar kept his face neutral, though in truth he despised the muggles and the liberties they took, believing the world belonged to them alone._

_“He trained her well with a sword. Imagine my surprise, one moment surrounded and certainly about to die and the next a vision in a blue dress begins cutting men down with supernatural talent.”_

_Helga was grinning so wide her face looked as though it might split. “I would have preferred magic, but I feared I would have been a poor sport using magic against a group of unarmed muggles.”_

_“I suspect they may have deserved your ire,” Salazar said, careful not to betray his feelings about muggles. Despite the trouble they had had over the years, Godric maintained they were still good at heart. Just misinformed._

_Helga shook her head, though her smile never faded. “Someday I believe they will come to understand us and realize we are not enemies.”_

_“Your hopes mirror my friend Godric’s here. I confess I do not share your optimism.”_

_“Well, perhaps we can change your mind in time,” Helga said, her words ringing like a promise he hoped to hold her to._

_“Indeed we will,” Godric agreed, “But we haven’t come to see old Salazar here on the merits of muggle-wizard cooperation. Salazar and I have come in hopes of convincing you in helping us.”_

_“Oh?”_

_“It’s a school,” Godric began, his eyes shining beneath a wild mane of red hair._

_“More sanctuary than school,” Salazar interrupted. “A place hidden from muggles, where wizards and witches can come and learn a standard curriculum and forge bonds that will keep them safe and interconnected.”_

_“I can’t possibly see why you’d want me for this venture,” Helga hedged, looking from Salazar up to Godric._

_“You are the missing piece,” Godric told her earnestly. “Your sense of justice, the hard work you commit yourself to, your kindness, these are all virtues students ought to learn and take with them when they leave.”_

_“You could not impart them yourself?” Helga asked, her eyes narrowing just slightly._

_“You know I could not, but even if I could, why would I try when you are so clearly the master? Your skills in Herbology and Transfiguration are unparalleled. The students would miss much if you declined.”_

_“How could I say no, when you put it like that?” She asked, much easier to convince that Rowena had been. Helga was also much younger than the rest of them, Salazar realized, which may have played a part in her willingness to go along with Gryffindor’s plan._

_Not that it mattered. He was grateful for Godric, both in convincing her and for introducing them. He hoped, judging by the way Helga continued to steal glances at him even as she spoke to Godric, that the attraction was not one sided._

_He wanted to know her better._

\---000---

“One more year, Stella. _Please_ stay out of trouble,” Alexander Murphy pleaded with his daughter. Stella grinned back at her father, though she’d already caught the eye of her best friend, Rowan Khanna, over his shoulder. Rowan gestured for Stella to join her on the train, anxious as always about getting an unoccupied train compartment. Stella left Rowan to it, giving the tall, raven haired man in front of her all the attention she could muster.

“What fun would _that_ be?” She teased, tucking a dirty blonde ringlet behind her own ear. She saw her dad suppress an eye roll.

“In my day, Hufflepuffs kept their nose to the ground,” he reminded her, as if Stella had ever cared about his day. Alexander Murphy had been as Slytherin as they came and if the stories were to be believed, just as much of a troublemaker as she was.

“I don’t believe you ever noticed a Hufflepuff _in your day,”_ she retorted, though it was all in good fun. For Stella’s entire life, it had just been her and her dad; her mother, a muggle, was unknown to her and unfindable to her father. To hear him tell it, and he did every year for her birthday, he’d awoken one morning to find a baby, wrapped in a warm blanket and tucked into a basket, on his porch with a note that often made Stella’s chest ache with longing when she thought of it.

_Love her enough for me._

To his credit, Alex lived those words like a mantra. Though she knew it had been hard on her business minded father, who she doubted _ever_ planned on having children, he’d made it look exceedingly effortless, even in the wake of the abandonment of his own family, unwilling and unable to accept a half-blooded granddaughter tainting their otherwise pure bloodline.

Stella had desperately wanted to give her father _something_ back, some small token that said she was his in more than just name. Her grandmother believed Alex had been tricked into raising a child that was not his up until Stella’s letter to Hogwarts arrived. They shared so few features. Alexander Murphy was the spitting image of his father, with dark hair and clear blue eyes, a strong jaw and sharp, chiseled features. Stella, on the other hand, feared she was the walking ghost of a woman her father had barely know, a memory he couldn’t escape with her long blonde hair that curled softly down her back and dark, brown eyes set into a soft, round face. Stella lacked her father’s strong jaw and the sharp cut of his cheekbones, replaced instead with soft dimples and appearance than made her resting face appear warm and inviting.

Though Stella may have lacked her father’s easy good looks, she made up for it with in personality. Stella had all of Alex’s ambition, her dedication to hard work, and her heightened sense of right and wrong. Alex had been the only Murphy to break ranks when Voldemort rose, fighting alongside the others opposed to the death eaters and their brutal regime. Stella wanted to prove she belonged to him when she arrived at Hogwarts. She’d been a hat stall for five entire minutes, arguing furiously with the sorting hat to put her in Slytherin. _All_ Murphy’s are Slytherins, she argued. In the end, the hat got its way.

Alex joked at the time that a Hufflepuff daughter was what he deserved for his many karmic crimes, but in a lot of ways, Hufflepuffs and Slytherin’s were good matches and to that end, Stella supposed it made sense that she would be the Hufflepuff to her father’s Slytherin. Though she’d never walk into a room able to instantly read it, or size everyone up the moment she shook their hand, Stella’s nose to the grindstone approach to work, her unwillingness to hear the word no, and her sense of justice made her a formidable opponent.

“Of course I did,” Alex interrupted Stella, pulling her into a hug. He kissed the top of her head and Stella let him hold her for a beat longer than she might otherwise.

“I’ll be _fine,”_ she assured him, pulling out of the hug before he was ready. His face, younger than the other parents, fell a little.

“You will,” he agreed, touching her cheek lightly with one of his knuckles. “You’re too good for them, kid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, turning _finally_ to meet her friends. Still, she turned to look back at him when her foot touched the metal train step, waving brightly before pulling herself in.

“Your dad still single?” Emily Tyler, a brunette Gryffindor, rolled her eyes as she pushed past Stella. “No one wants to marry him, I guess?”

“You’d know all about that!” Stella called back with too much enthusiasm. Emily stopped in her tracks; her blue eyes narrowed to slits.

“I see _Haywood_ has been running her mouth again,” she all but snarled as Stella’s grin never wavered.

“I just _guessed,”_ Stella said, suppressing a laugh. “Merlin, Tyler, you can’t even keep _Weasley?”_

It was Stella turn to shove past Emily, crowing in her victory. “You’ll always have your cat, I guess.”

“Eat shit, Murphy!” Emily shouted behind Stella’s back, though it did little to damper her mood. It was so _rare_ she got the last word with Emily, her rival during her time at Hogwarts. In Stella’s defense, Emily had assigned Stella as her rival and not the other way around; Emily had nothing Stella really wanted. Emily was shallow, superficial and strangely self-righteous and Stella couldn’t see why people liked her. She was beautiful, in an obvious sort of way but that didn’t make up for her absolute shit personality.

Emily Tyler had spent the better part of their fifth and sixth year dating golden boy Bill Weasley, one of the few people Stella genuinely did not like, lording it over the school about what a power couple they’d be once they graduated. Stella often wondered if Bill was aware that Emily had been the one who gave Percy, the younger Weasley, the nick name _nerdy Percy._ It seemed so silly, but the point wasn’t to be clever, it was to hurt the awkward, gangly boy and it _worked._

 _Good for you, Weasley,_ she thought, catching sight of his long, ginger hair in one of the compartments as she passed by. They had a lot of friends in common to the point that it probably would have been easier to just try and like him. Bill hadn’t done anything specifically wrong to her, at least not at first. He’d just been another boy at Hogwarts in another house she had a peripheral awareness of.

Like Stella, Bill was also drawn to the cursed vaults but lacked the same follow through she felt, especially if breaking the rules came into play. As consequence, Bill’s involvement had nearly gotten her killed twice and Stella hated him for it. Bill was, in truth, Stella’s rival though Bill might not agree or even want it that way. Her hatred had solidified as the years passed and Bill

overtook her in the classes she considered herself the best in, and his relationship with Emily. Stella didn’t have siblings, though she’d always wanted one, and she couldn’t understand how Bill could choose someone like Emily over his younger brother, even if that brother _was_ the annoying Percy Weasley.

She found Rowan in the train compartment with Penny and Tulip, holding hands openly though Stella could tell Tulip felt defensive about it. Stella sat next to Rowan; shiny head girl badge pinned to her robes. Blonde, blue eyed Penny sat across from her, the most popular girl in school and another Hufflepuff. Red haired, brown eyed Tulip was a Ravenclaw and a fellow troublemaker though Rowan, Penny, Stella and Tonks all regarded her as an honorary Hufflepuff.

“What took so long?” Tulip asked as the train whistled, a warning of departure.

“Some of us _like_ our parents,” Stella reminded Tulip, who rolled her eyes in response.

“Is that all?”

“Ran into Tyler,” Stella told the compartment to general interest. Penny, in particular, sat forward, eyes shining with interest.

“Oh? What did she want?”

“To insult my dad,” Stella replied. “I did find out Weasley dumped her though.”

Penny sat back against the seat with a grin on her face. “Good for him. He’s way too good for her.”

“Does that mean he’s single?” Rowan added to general groans.

“Absolutely not,” Stella said quickly as Tulip nodded her head furiously.

“What about Lee?”

“He’s…not very smart,” Rowan hedged about their friend Barnaby, arguably one of the best-looking boys in school though he wasn’t very bright. Barnaby, in Stella’s opinion, _was_ smart, just not in the ways Rowan valued. Rowan was all about books and facts and Barnaby was about people and animals. If Rowan had ever looked beyond the basics of Barnaby, she’d know it, too. It had long been regarded as fact that the two would be good together…if they’d ever actually spend time together.

“No man is,” Tulip said wisely to agreement.

As if on cue, a soft knock on the door, followed by Bill Weasley himself.

“Hey Rowan…I, uh, thought you might want to patrol?”

The head boy badge was pinned just as prominently to his robes, much like Rowans. Bill kept his eyes firmly on Rowan, ignoring Tulip and Stella who were notoriously adversarial. Penny, however, was all too happy to greet him.

“Hi Bill! How was your summer?”

Stella could see relief flood through Bill’s features. “It was good. Relaxing, despite…you know…”

“Your breakup?” Penny asked wisely.

Bill went pale. “I meant all my brothers…I guess word gets around fast, huh?”

“Can’t believe it took you so long,” Tulip muttered, eliciting soft giggles from Stella.

“I’ll patrol with you,” Rowan said quickly, climbing over Stella as she went.

“Tell Fred and George I said hi!” Tulip yelled at their retreating backs. “I like them.”

Stella liked the second youngest Weasley, Charlie. He and her often trained for Quidditch together, though Stella was two years older. Charlie reminded Stella of Barnaby, someone who was primarily interested in dragons and Quidditch and very little else was going on behind his eyes.

“You two are the _worst,”_ Penny chided once their friends were gone.

“That’s not true!” Tulip protested.

“You’ve met Tyler,” Stella added.

“Bill is _nice,”_ Penny continued.

“Bill is boring,” Tulip countered.

“If I wanted to hang out with someone obsessed with the rules, I could just see what Rowan is up to,” Stella added.

“He helped you with that ice vault,” Penny reminded her. Stella’s face darkened.

“Only after he got me encased in ice and had to rescue me from it.”

“What if he hadn’t been there? You’d have frozen to death!”

“I wouldn’t have triggered the curse!” Stella shot back, annoyed. Penny rolled her eyes.

“He’s just as good as you, Stella.”

“How dare you,” Stella joked. “No one is as good as me.”

The door to the compartment slid open and Orion Black poked his head in, his dark hair falling casually into his brown eyes.

“Hey Stella,” he said as her heart picked up.

“Oh for the love of Merlin,” Tulip groaned, earning a scowl from the seventh year Slytherin peering in. “I thought you two were done with this?”

“Give me a second,” Stella told Orion, who nodded and closed the door behind him.

“Tulip is right!” Penny said as Stella stood. “He’s gonna break your heart again, you _know_ he’s looking for a pure-blooded wife—”

Stella closed the door behind her before their reasonable arguments could get in the way of what she wanted, which was another shot with Orion. They’d been on and off since her third year and though there had been many times Stella wanted to quit him, she couldn’t bring herself to let him go.

“What’s going on?” She asked him once they were alone in the corridor of the speeding train.

He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I was thinking about how things ended last year…and I want to try again.”

“Maybe we could just…test the waters before jumping feet first in again?” She suggested hesitantly. He’d broken up with her for Ismelda last year, rubbing the new relationship in her face and she couldn’t deny that it still stung. Orion was the only boy she’d ever dated at Hogwarts and sometimes it felt like she was his place holder while he looked for better things.

“A date, then? First Hogsmeade visit?”

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. He leaned forward, kissing her cheek. “I’ve missed you Stells.”

“I missed you too,” she replied with a soft smile. He turned and walked away, leaving her facing a curious looking Bill Weasley.

_“Now_ who’s stupid?” He asked her placidly, taking several steps forward, a call back to their previous year, when Stella had accused him of being stupid in potions.

“You,” she retorted, narrowing her eyes.

He leaned against one of the compartment doors, peering inside as he did. “Maybe, but. I’m not the one still dating Black.”

“Do you want an _award?”_ She hissed, seething with irritation.

He shrugged, standing straight again. “Any luck with the vault?”

She’d had no luck over the last two years, though neither had he. “I’m not going to tell _you.”_

She turned, flipping her hair over her shoulder to leave him there but Bill stopped her before she could open the door, saying, “I know you’re still having nightmares about it.”

She froze for a second, hand on the door, before looking over her shoulder. “You don’t know _anything.”_

“I have them too.”

Some of her irritation melted into curiosity. The nightmares were persistent and, as time went on, more vivid. She’d always assumed it was just her, something about her specifically that the vault was calling out to. Knowing that Bill was also experiencing them both annoyed and fascinated her.

“About what?”

He pulled his shoulder length red hair into a ponytail absently. “Why don’t you meet me in the library some time and we can compare notes?”

Her lips drooped into a frown. She’d rather pull out her own teeth than spend time in the _library,_ especially with Bill.

“No thanks.”

With that, she opened her compartment door back open and stepped inside, leaving Bill alone with nothing but his thoughts.


End file.
